REVIEW OF Ontario Virtual School BY student, Sophie Ratner

(5) Student Experience

Ontario Virtual School was a great experience for me as a student. I turned to OVS after frustration with my day school calculus teacher. I loved the flexibility of the course, but I was still encouraged to complete it on a regular basis by the nature of the website. In such a stressful and important year, such as grade 12, I felt supported by OVS, and the grade I received helped me get into my top choice of a university program (Western Ivey). Whenever I reached out to my teacher, she was quick to respond. She was also quick to mark tests, usually it took one day, which is great compared to my day school, where it takes over a week. Another aspect I liked was how my current mark was always visible to me, so I always knew how I was doing overall in the course.

(5) School Leadership

Since Ontario Virtual School was e-learning, I did not have many interactions with the headmasters of the school. However, whenever I had questions regarding deadlines or details about the course, and called OVS, and they were very helpful and informative. When it was time to write the final exam, I had trouble finding a proctor who was available. Luckily, after my father and I called OVS about this issue, they offered to let me write the exam at the OVS offices. When I came to the offices to write the exam, all the employees were very friendly and accommodating. My teacher responded to emails very quickly and marked tests quickly.

(5) Teaching

My teacher always left feedback on my tests so I could know where to improve on/what I was succeeding in. The instructors in the virtual lessons were always very clear and were good at explaining confusing concepts in Calculus and Vectors in a way that was easy for me to understand. After each lesson, there was a short quiz that tested me on the concepts I learned in that lesson. This was very helpful, as I could see what concepts I was and was not grasping without the stakes of a test that counted towards my final mark. If I got a question wrong, there was an attached video lesson that explained that specific concept to me. This was very helpful in ensuring success.

(5) Academics

I felt the work at Ontario Virtual School was a good mix of challenging and simple. I found that the tests would often have questions that I understood right away, but would also have questions that required more thinking and helped me expand my mind. Compared to my day school, where I find that courses are usually very easy or a very big struggle for me, I feel that the Ontario Virtual School Calculus and Vectors course was a perfect balance. It allowed me to grow while still achieving the academic success I strived for. On tests, there would always be at least one question that connected to a real-world application. These questions are connected with fields such as engineering, construction, and business (which is the subject I would like to go into).

(4) Extracurriculars

Since Ontario Virtual School is an asynchronous online school that I take along with my in-person day school, I did not participate in any traditional extracurriculars. I saw this as a good thing because this allowed me to balance my many extracurriculars that I participate in at my in-person day school. There were still supports, such as one-on-one tutoring with my teacher, that were offered.

(4.5) Students

I knew multiple other students at my day school who were also enrolled in Ontario Virtual School. They also enjoyed it and found it a great alternative to our day school. In my opinion, this school is beneficial for many kinds of students. Since the courses are so flexible and self-paced, it is good for students who may have a busy or random schedule from extracurriculars or a part-time job. This structure may be harder to manage for students who are less determined, but luckily, the website has a digital feature that allows students to make a schedule for themselves to keep them on track and on deadline. There are also incentives in the form of points for completing lessons, units, and tests.

(5) School Life

This question will be interpreted a little differently since Ontario Virtual School is mostly online. If I were giving visitors a tour of the website, I would first show them the layout of the homepage of each course. In my Calculus and Vectors course, each unit was separate, and it was clearly visible how many lessons and activities there were per unit, and what each one was about. This made it very easy for me to follow along. There was also a sidebar that showed how many lessons I had completed out of the total, which helped me motivate to keep going with the course so I could finish. My current mark was always visible on this sidebar, and this helped me to know where I stood with the course.

(5) Community

Ontario Virtual School has a very welcoming environment. When you first enroll in a course, there is an orientation course that explains how everything works. It covers the fundamentals, how things work, how to reach out for support, and how to earn your credit. My teacher was always available for questions, and so were the employees who answered the phones at the Ontario Virtual School offices whenever I or one of my parents had a question. As I mentioned in a prior section, I went into the in-person offices once to write my final exam, and everyone there was very kind and welcoming to me. I was asked if I needed anything, and when I had a question about the exam, it was answered.

(5) School Location

Ontario Virtual School is an online school, so there is not really an in-person campus other than the main offices, which are located in North York, Ontario. I liked this aspect of the course because it meant that I could do my lessons for Calculus and Vectors in many different locations. I could do the lessons at home, in my day school's library when I had spare time, or on vacation.

(5) Admissions

There was no admissions test for Ontario Virtual School. The school was recommended to me by my day school guidance counsellor. It was very simple to sign up. All I had to do was go on the website, pick the course I wanted, put in my details, pay for it, and then add it as a school on OUAC (since I was applying to universities at the time of taking the course). The process was not stressful at all and very easy to do.